


Positives and Negatives

by Feelysonheelys, timdadanon



Series: Silver Skull [4]
Category: The Aquabats! Super Show!
Genre: Aliens, Best read in context of other works in this series, Gen, Intense Themes, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Space Jail, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 06:59:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19824922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feelysonheelys/pseuds/Feelysonheelys, https://archiveofourown.org/users/timdadanon/pseuds/timdadanon
Summary: Adam has visitors.(written by timdadanon, revised and co-written by feelysonheelys)





	Positives and Negatives

**Author's Note:**

> Adam almost remembers part of his missing time. Earthlings aren't the only ones Space Monster M has targeted, after all.

Adam didn’t realize he’d been asleep until his rest had been interrupted by the sound of movement. His shoulders jumped a little at the clatter of the tray being moved from his nightstand.

He blinked at the figure moving the tray. “Ricky?”

Ricky recoiled as Adam started to push himself upright “Oh, oops, sorry. Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up, the Professor sent me to get you some more food and water and stuff.” 

“It’s fine,” Adam sunk back into his pillow. “I really ought to be rested by now…”

Adam’s old sleeping space at the lab had been all but converted into a hospital recovery room since the prince had been brought in for evaluation. Most of the complicated machinery he’d seen last time he regained a fuzzy sense of consciousness was gone now, which he assumed to be a good thing. He wasn’t on an IV anymore, and he had been allowed to eat last time he was up, so the Professor was probably done with all the little examinations and surgeries his head had been put through.

Adam looked over the contents of the tray: a glass of water down to the ice, a fruit salad down to just the melon (which tasted off), Jell-O down to the cup, and a half finished pack of bland, unsalted crackers. He was still hungry, something Ricky seemed to be picking up on, but there was nothing left for him on that tray.

“Need anything else, bud?” 

“Um, I guess a refill on the water and-” Adam paused for a second. “Pretzels. Do we have pretzels? I need something salty.”

“Can do!” Ricky nodded. 

As Ricky left with the tray and closed the door, Adam started to drift

slowly but surely

off to sleep

  
  
  


Adam.

Adam was awake..?

was he?

yes, he was awake.

he was awake in this

this clear pink room

he could hear some yelling

it was loud

too loud

way too loud

it was not yelling in Aquabanian 

or even English 

what was it?

it didn’t matter 

what mattered was they were yelling

and they were yelling his name

they?

the They were dozens of creatures banging against the wall of his small pink room

the pink glassy walls were all that protected him from these loud and strange monsters

Except no. They weren’t monsters. They were just aliens. 

They weren’t here to hurt him. They were captives, just like him. 

His friends. 

he struggled forward against the fog over his memory, pulling together anything he could find. 

Space prison. Space Monster M. Prisoner of War. 

he’d been here for a long time. Too long. he was tired, and everything hurt. 

he didn’t want to be here. he didn’t want to be awake 

with all the loud noises 

and loud feelings. 

he just wanted to fade away.

  
  


and so he did.

That is, he started to. But then Adam's brain was yanked into full consciousness as an electric bolt slipped down his spine, causing him to jump. He met eyes with one of the aliens staring through, a five foot tall frog-like creature who stopped calling just as Adam finally recognized the language as the cobbled-together tongue the peaceful POWs had crafted in an attempt to understand each other. It was necessary with such a diverse zoo of prisoners from countless planets and cultures.

Homes that were under M’s subjugation. Cultures that had been destroyed.

Seeing Adam on his feet just made the crowd roar louder, but the individual Adam had locked eyes with had become quiet the moment Adam looked at him. Hyla, the name came to him. Of course. Hyla. His wide eyes were fixed on Adam with horror and pity.

“H-Hello,” Adam tried to smile. “Hello, everyone.”

The commotion died into a soft rumble of whispers. No one on either side of the wall had any idea what to say. 

Hyla put a hand on the glass. “What did they  _ do? _ ”

The soft burble of the alien’s voice took a moment to register in Adam’s mind, and it must have shown from the increasing concern in the crowd’s muttering. Once he understood the question, he froze in place.

“Adam, what in the universe did they  _ do _ to you?”

“I don’t...” Adam faltered. “I do... Space Monster M was there, I… I know I got shocked. I got shocked a lot.”

Hyla took a deep breath and grimaced, showing off his fangs. 

“A-adam,” he began in a slow, labored tone, “We know that. You’ve been shocked a lot. They always shock you. That’s what your scars are from, remember?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, unfocused. “Yeah.”

His mind was slipping. Thankfully, it was not another electric shock that pulled him to attention, but Hyla’s gentle tap on the wall.

“Adam?”

“Hm?”

“I need…” Hyla briefly pursed his lips. “Do you know… what  _ is _ that thing on your face?”

Adam’s shaky fingertips touched his cheeks. “My face?”   
It was then that Adam’s gaze stopped focusing on Hyla and the others, and all that he could see was the smudged, reflective surface of the wall, and the one ghostly face that stared back at him. A gaunt, terrified face with a raised red  **_M_ ** in the center of his forehead. 

His memory shoved him backward, scrambling on the ground as his hands clamped over the alien symbol affixed to his head. His rough, short fingernails refused to even draw blood from his face as he scraped in vain at the device. He couldn’t restrain the heaving breaths and tears forcing themselves out of him. Any semblance of pride he had left crumbled to dust as he let himself fall apart on the floor of his cell, sobbing incoherently.

He felt no motivation to even try to keep himself under control until he remembered the concerned faces beyond the glass.

He forced himself to regulate his breathing as he returned his attention to the prisoners outside. It was something unusual to be able to recognize heartbreak on so many different kinds of faces.

He took a deep, shaky inhale. “Space Monster M is testing mind control technology. This version needs to be improved before he puts it into formal use next time.”

He spoke like each word was another step in concrete shoes. 

Hyla was the one to break through the soft whispers.

“That… That would explain your… number.”

His number. Oh, God.

Space Monster M’s prison system was not one known for mercy. There were no temporary sentences for enemies of his empire, and the prisoners were reminded of this every time they looked at each other. The prisoners who did not carry the rare life sentence (though, on a technical level, all of them served for the remainder of their lives) bore a countdown on their white and red uniforms that would update daily to display how many more days they had to live. Those who programmed the timers often had sick senses of humor, intentionally changing the days up to toy with the hopes of the bearers. Adam had his own history of date fluctuation, as whoever was in charge of the system started his sentence with 120 days right off the bat and let the days pass into the single digits before adding 30 more. Adam was so tired of saying his goodbyes that he didn’t believe they’d finally decided on his fate until his counter went below 5. 

He looked down at his shirt. 

_ -1 _

He’d never seen it personally. Negatives were rarely put on display, and when they were, watching them was cruel. It was the mark of a slow, agonizing death, often poisoning or death by torture. The mark of a walking corpse, already recorded as deceased.

Adam’s body wasn’t going to die, but Adam was. Death of personality, with M cast as puppeteer of his corpse.

“I know what they’re going to do,” Adam whispered.

None of the other prisoners wanted to ask him to continue, but no one would ever consider stopping him. 

“I know what they’re going to do,” Adam repeated his statement louder, though he wasn’t sure if he was explaining to his companions or rambling to himself. “They’re going to hollow me out from the inside. They’re going to get this- this  _ thing _ to work, and they’re going to turn off and replace every little bit of what I am just to prove that they can, and then they’ll…” 

He only stopped for a moment to choke on his own saliva.

“They’ll send me back home. And I’ll be hunting down the other Aquabanians until I die. Space Monster M is going to make me kill my friends.”

Adam had a hard time telling his fellow captives’ voices apart after that. Everything blended together in a cry of concern and pity. The occasional word and phrase poked through: things like  _ Adam _ and _ poor dear, not right, can’t, won’t _ . 

“But they’re the Aquabats.”

It was one of his old cell mates, a bulky horned beast whose soft voice broke through. 

“They’re pretty unstoppable, right? They’ve been fighting M’s forces for over a decade, and they have such a good track record that Adam only got caught when he was on his own. They’ll be able to take him on, won’t they?”

“And they avoid killing,” another alien added in affirmation. “They will show him mercy.” 

“You’ll be able to see them again,” Hyla tried to make Adam meet his gaze. “You get to go home, your friends will find you.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” 

He pulled his knees close into his chest, staring down at his scarred hands. 

“If they don’t kill me, I have no idea what I could be capable of like that, or what they would do if they found out who…  _ what  _ I was.”

He wrapped his arms around himself. “I just… I don’t know what to… I’m…” 

He was desperate for comfort that he knew he couldn’t have. He looked out past the glass, scanning every one of the faces that had gathered to support him, but there were no answers in their eyes. Just the same fear and sadness that he felt. 

Hyla crossed his long, springy legs and planted himself firmly on the floor inches from the glassy wall. 

“Adam,” he began softly, “They  _ will  _ be able to save you. They’ve been able to take on Space Monster M’s forces for over ten years! Ever since you got here, you’ve been literally singing their praises to keep our spirits up. If they’re half as great as you say, I don’t think there’s anything they can’t do. It’s going to be hard, but you’re going to be okay.”

The Aquabanian prince scooted up to lean against the glass, staring wide-eyed at his alien friend. 

“They’re going to save you. You’re going to be okay,” Hyla soothed. “And you know what? When they do, I know I’ll see you again some day. Okay?” 

The alien gestured to his own countdown number— a static infinity symbol, a life sentence. It would be a lie to say there was happiness in his face, but Adam didn’t expect or need happiness at the moment. Instead, he saw hope.

“I’m going to try to believe you,” he sighed. “I don’t want to think about if you’re wrong.”

Hyla gave him a bittersweet smile. “Then don’t. You can rest. Just know that we’re all here for you.”

  
  


Adam was jolted awake by a loud, repetitive knocking sound.

“Come in!”

The prince made a mental note to focus on remembering the fading dream later as Professor Monty Corndog swung the door open.

“Good to see you up! Sorry if I woke you, but you have some visitors. Would you like them to come in and see you or…”

“I’ll come to them,” Adam swung his legs off the side of the bed. “I need to get up for a bit. How long was I out?”

“Um. Between forty and forty-three hours.”

Adam's mouth opened slightly as his eyes widened.

“Now, you know you need the rest--”

“Forty hours since Ricky moved my tray?”

“No! Goodness no,” Monty chuckled. “No, in total. Since your surgery. You are completely free of alien tech, my friend! No more needles in your noggin. Now, while you’re in recovery, you should expect--” 

“Monty, if it’s fine with you, I’d really just like to get up now.”

The scientist nodded and gave him a thumbs up. “Understandable. Now, do you want to know who your guests are? Or do you want a surprise?”

Adam grinned, and grabbed a pretzel from his restocked nightstand.

“Leave it a surprise for now. I’ve got a few guesses.”


End file.
